teens and txting, lolz

This week I’m moving away from cyberbullying, but am keeping with part of last week’s theme—mobile phones and, specifically, the use of texting. In earlier weeks I have mentioned how annoying it is to be around someone who is constantly texting. Are they paying attention to their phone or to you? Are they just being rude? Are they not interested in what you have to say? The questions that pop up can be endless.

It seems that kids are getting cell phones at younger and younger ages, which inevitably means they are becoming text addicts earlier and earlier. Texting has become a form of communication that is more popular than talking on the phone (and we all know how teenagers can talk to each other on the phone for hours and hours…). Thus, when teenagers reach the age where they are receiving their driver’s licenses, it is difficult for them to have to entirely stop this incredibly consuming mode of communication while they are driving.  This is a problem that seems to be increasing in its occurrence. In fact, studies have shown that anywhere from twenty percent to more than fifty percent of teenagers admit to texting while driving… and studies also have shown that distracted driving is the leading cause of automobile accidents. And what’s the most common distraction? Yep, you guessed it—texting. Long story short, people really need to use some common sense and just put the phone down while they’re headed from point A to point B. That would probably prevent a lot of accidents from occurring. But a recent State Farm study discovered that teenagers don’t think texting while driving is as dangerous as drinking and driving (in reality, a driver that texts and drives has a twenty-three times greater risk of being in an accident, versus four times for those who drive while intoxicated).

I was recently with a group of mothers of teenagers, so I asked them about the texting and driving problem, and if they had had any discussions with their teen about its danger. They had, which was no surprise to me; however, a number of them had also done something I hadn’t even considered. They had their teens drive stick shift cars. Now, manual vehicles are not very common in the United States, but these mothers made sure the cars they bought for their teens’ use were manual and not automatic. Since driving a manual car requires the use of both hands much of the time (one on the steering wheel, the other on the gear shifter), texting while driving becomes nearly impossible. These parents felt like the likelihood of texting while driving being a problem for their teens was almost nonexistent. The other parents… well, not so much. I think this is a very interesting “solution” to the problem. Plus, it isn’t like these parents don’t trust their children; rather, they felt that by limiting the opportunity for texting, it would be easier for their children to not even be tempted to text, which made them feel more comfortable. I wasn’t able to find any sort of study about this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if their rationale is someday supported and proven to be correct.

Apparently, car crashes aren’t the only thing to be worried about when it comes to teens and texting. “Extreme texting,” or “hyper-texting,” which is defined as sending from at least eighty text messages to 120 text messages per day (depending on the study), poses many other health risks. In addition to an increased risk in driving accidents, texting can cause sleep disruption, trigger thumb, back pain, and neck pain. Plus anxiety, distraction in school, and falling grades. You thought cell phones were banned during school hours in many schools? You may be correct; however, many teens are able to text without even looking at their phones—a hand in a pocket is enough to send a message (though, of course, not for the touch-screen phones, like the iPhone). Teens are always worried about missing something, being out of the loop, and that is one reason why texting is so prevalent.  Some psychologists worry that the increase in texting is changing how adolescents develop, and changing their autonomy.  With texting, teens can constantly be in connection with their parents, which could prohibit them from making their own decisions and growing into their own identities. I’m not sure how much I buy that argument, but it’s definitely one about which people worry.

But that’s not all. A recent press release by the American Public Health Association states that new research demonstrates that teens who hyper-text are more likely to smoke, drink, engage in sexual activity, do drugs, and get in physical fights, among other behaviors of poor health. The study doesn’t say that hyper-texting leads to these behaviors, but that hyper-texting “facilitates or enables” them. Overall, it is a pretty disturbing discovery. Of course, teens who text excessively often come from family backgrounds where parents aren't available (for text regulation, rule enforcement, etc.), which often means the kids have less supervision and an increased risk of bad behavior; there are a lot of reasons why these things may be correlated.

So next time you text, make sure you're not doing it while you drive, or when you're supposed to be actually interacting with real, live human beings.

cyberbullying, part III: sexting

Another form of cyberbullying that has not been discussed is that of sexting. Sexting occurs when one person texts sexually explicit content, whether it be a written message or an image, to another. If you look back at my first post on this blog, you can see some of the statistics I put up about teenagers and their mobile phone usage. Fact: teenagers text. A lot. This can lead to many different issues (high phone bills, antisocial behavior, etc.) but there is one that may not cross the mind of many parents—sexting. The majority of parents do not believe their child has been involved in sexting at all, whether it is sending a sext, receiving one, or even being the victim in one. Many times, sexting occurs between two people who are involved as romantic partners.

While this is not necessarily a problem, what happens when they break up? Somtimes these messages are kept in between the two people involved; sometimes they are not. The sender has no way to prevent the receiver from forwarding the sexts (in this case, they are usually x-rated images of the sender) onto other people via text message or email. Additionally, this does not have to happen after a couple has broken up, or even if they were ever together—once the images have entered cyberspace, they are impossible to control. The Pew Internet and American Life Project did a study on teens and sexting in 2009 and found that it is becoming increasingly common for these sexts to be used as a type of “relationship currency. ” They often are sent when one person is interested in beginning a relationship with another, and they act as an opener or a demonstration of interest. While I find this hard to digest, we were all teens once, and it certainly can be an age at which one is particularly vulnerable.

A tragic example of this is of a 13-year-old girl who hanged herself after photographs of her, topless, circulated her middle school and then the local high school, and even neighboring schools. Apparently, she had sent a picture to a boy she had liked; someone else had intercepted the phone when the picture was sent, and the rest is history. She was taunted and mobbed in the hallways, and the school, upon finding out what happened, suspended her. She made a mistake, as many teens do, but, as a character in the Facebook movie aptly says, “the Internet is written in ink.” When something is said or shared in cyberspace, it is there forever.

Sexting does affect more than just teenagers, and I will quickly throw in a few examples. For instance, there is Tiger Woods and his various mistresses who came up with sexts from him, proof of their affairs. Then there’s Brett Farve, who has apparently been caught sexting:



Teens’ opinions of sexting vary from one extreme to the other, with some seeing it as “no big deal” to others focusing on the potential consequences, possibly viewing it as illegal. Something that seems very private may not be, for the reasons mentioned above. Sometimes this can be hard for teenagers to even think about, but the prosecution of some teens for child pornography (i.e. sexts) should be something more for them to think about, as it brings a reality to some of the teens’ fears of legal repercussions. Additionally, there was a group of teenage boys who were recently arrested for using text messages to harass another student at their school: this is another instance of cyberbullying. While this is not sexting, it is along a very similar vein, as it uses text messages as a form of harassment.

The harassment from sexting tends to occur outside of the home, often in schools. This increases the risk for many teens because it decreases the knowledge and influence the parents can have. Acknowledging the dangerous growth of sexting, in 2009, the National Crime Prevention Council issued a news release about its dangers. More recently, the FCC announced that it will start to address issues of cyberbullying in schools where the Internet is subsidized by the government. It's a start.

cyberbullying, part II: cyberspace and (homo)sexuality

Cyberbullying has taken a scary turn for the worse—the incidents of teens harming themselves or taking their own lives have been increasing. Many of them were taunted for being homosexual and, regardless of whether or not it was true, were not able to take it any longer. In a society that is supposedly becoming more tolerant, it is particularly disturbing to see young people acting this way. Rutgers University was recently shocked by the death of Tyler Clementi, a suicide that has really struck the nation. For weeks, news media has continued to publish articles about Tyler and other teens who have committed suicide due to the harassment they felt from cyberbullying. An NJ.com blog post highlights some of the ways in which Tyler’s suicide has sparked action across the nation.  There’s even a full, very detailed Wikipedia page about the incident and the wide range of outraged responses it received.

Unfortunately, Clementi was only one of a string of suicides related to sexual orientation and cyberbullying. The Huffington Post had something about cyberbullying and the rise of suicides back in March: "Cyberbullying Rampant for Lesbian and Gay Teens", which predates the September events. Time Magazine recently had an article about Clementi and three others: “Bullied To Death? In the past four weeks, four teenagers killed themselves after being harassed by schoolmates. Technology is quickly changing how kids bully one another. Here are some ways to stop the problem.” Sadly, Clementi, at 18 years old, was the oldest of the suicides that were profiled in the article (all which took place within 19 days). William Lucas, 15 and Seth Walsh, 13 both hanged themselves—the latter ended up spending more than a week on life support—and Asher Brown, 13, shot himself in the head. Thirteen-year-olds killing themselves because of harassment?! I was shocked to read about these incidents. Apparently, many gay people are coming out as young as age 14, which makes the bullying start earlier. Kids are meaner and it’s easier for them to be mean with the Internet as another way of communicating, instead of just face-to-face contact. Even Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, released a YouTube video addressing the problem of bullying and anti-gay sentiments:



Cyberbullying is something that is impossible to escape. When kids are bullied at school, it is a horrible thing, but they are able to escape from bullies when they are not at school. This is not the case with cyberbullying, which can be incessant. People can make direct statements via chatting tools like AIM, iChat, Facebook chat, or g-chat, but they can also make bullying comments more indirectly: posting on someone’s Facebook wall, a status update, Twitter tweets, e-mails, text messages: the list goes on.

A Psychology Today blog that focuses on the world of the adolescent mind has a post that stems from Clementi’s tragic death: “Tyler Clementi Should Still Be Alive: shame on us.” While this delves deeper into the actual suicide, it is important to remember what it was that spurred him to take his own life.

An invasion of privacy. It is much too easy to invade other people’s lives with the Internet and its vast reserves of information (and tools for locating said information). The Internet, of course, is both beneficial and detrimental. For teens struggling with their sexual identity, or struggling to deal with being homosexual, there are message boards and other places they can go that offer support they might not be able to find elsewhere. But people can use the Internet for ridicule, harassment, and other negative purposes. Cyberbullying has been on the rise as teens’ lives become more entrenched in the online world. For those who are already having problems dealing with being gay on their own, the added stress of others either finding out via the Internet or acting as cyberbullies can be enough to push them towards drastic measures. An article from a high school newspaper talks about how teen suicide is on the rise, particularly among those teens who are homosexual:



The fact that so many teenagers have taken their lives in such a short span of time, and all because of being bullied online about their sexual orientation, is really scary. It makes me wonder what's going to happen next. Post-Clementi, New Jersey is pushing legislation that would increase penalties for the invasion of privacy, and some schools are directly addressing anti-gay bullying, but how much will that really do?

cyberbullying, part I: Facebook

One thing about the growth of mobile phones, the Internet, and associated content is that new avenues for bullying and harassment were opened up.  While both the Internet and mobile phones are full of benefits, there are also downsides. Bullying and other such negative aspects are particularly noticeable in the teenage age range, as that is a particularly vulnerable age group. Part of this is because during this time in life many teenagers are trying to figure out who they are and what their “identity” is, and thus are doing a lot of experimentation.

When I was doing research for last week’s Facebook entry, I was very surprised to come across articles detailing “Facebook murders”—though, judging from what has occurred across the Internet in general, I suppose I shouldn’t have been so taken aback. Last May, for instance, a teenager in Sydney, Australia was murdered after meeting up with someone she had met on Facebook. Unlike many of the other suspect meetings one hears about, the girl, Nora Belomesoff, was not expecting to meet any sort of romantic interest. Rather, the man claimed to be a part of an animal welfare group, and had a potential job offer for her, but meeting up with him to go search for injured animals in the bush was something she apparently had to do before getting the job. Facebook makes it very easy for anyone to create a profile or a page of a seemingly legitimate organization, which is what this man did. In general, Facebook seems to be more “reputable” than websites like Craigslist, which has faced its own murder problems, and teenagers need to learn to be careful about whom they “meet” and “friend” on Facebook, as even if something seems relatively innocuous, there may be more to it than its face value.

As scary as the above story is (word to the wise, never go alone when meeting someone from online in person), last December (2009), two friends carried a Facebook argument into the real world, and ultimately one of them ended up dead. I would hope that teenagers, in general, would have enough common sense to be aware of how serious defamation is, whether it occurs online or in the real world. The problem with the online world is that, even though a name might be attached to a comment or an action, there is still a greater aspect of anonymity than a face-to-face interaction. In this particular case, one boy stabbed and killed another after having exchanged insults on Facebook. Additionally, in the current times, it is important to maintain a good online reputation, the loss of which can be incredibly upsetting: case in point with this incident—the boys were only fifteen and eighteen, ages where self-esteem is vulnerable and popularity can be very important.

Another problem with sites like Facebook and MySpace is that not only can people set up pages representing fake organizations, but they can also do the opposite and create fake profiles of real people. A boy got into trouble for having a Facebook account and using it to say inappropriate things… except it wasn’t his account. Someone had made an account, pretending to be him and the boy suffered as a result. Research has shown that social sites like Facebook are responsible for the majority of cyberbullying that goes on (as compared to other types of websites), and the majority of teenagers hold Facebook accounts. Thus, the issue is only becoming bigger, particularly because Facebook privacy has become more limited and there is little Facebook itself can (or will) do to prevent cyberbullying, or to help victims.

the Facebook phenomenon

The invention of Facebook has been one of the most influential events that has affected the realm of teenage communication and interaction. I must preface this week’s post by saying I had to wait to post until I had fully informed myself by going to see The Social Network in theaters (it was fabulous, go see it!).  I had been looking forward to its release for quite some time, as I actually have a couple of connections to the film. The least of which is that I did some of my undergraduate education at Johns Hopkins, which was one of the stand-ins for Harvard in the movie (Harvard has been reluctant to allow filming on campus since an incident in 1970). More interesting, however, is that one of my good friends from high school was cast as a rower—and, having studied film and acting in college, managed to snag a speaking line, very exciting. Additionally, a close friend of mine from college is at Oxford with the Winklevoss twins, and, as it turns out, is rather good friends with them, as they are all in the elite Oxford University Boat Club (i.e., they’re all on Oxford’s crew team… if you haven’t noticed, the rowing world is very small). I asked my friend what the twins thought of the movie and he replied:

They filmed the Henley scene after the last race on the last day of Henley this year... I was there with the (real) twins on the bank screaming "Go Tyler! Go Cameron!" at the actors. The twins love the movie... And they do come off very well in it, even if there are some pretty corny lines. They especially enjoyed the trailer soundtrack (a cover of Radiohead's "Creep") because it is so fitting for Zuckerberg...

After all of the allegations and lawsuits, it’s no small wonder they’re not Zuckerberg’s biggest fans. Anyway, back to Facebook.

Facebook is, in and of itself, an interesting creature. A week or so ago, one of my friends had as his Facebook status: “Facebook cuts will be made tonight. If you find yourself defriended- it’s because you’re not a friend.” Without getting into how Facebook has essentially changed the English language by turning “friend” into a verb, I would like to point out that, even with whatever “cuts” this individual instituted, he still has over six hundred “friends” on Facebook. One can accept or decline a Facebook friendship with the click of a button; how that translates into real life is not nearly so easy or simple.

Does anyone remember what life was like before Facebook? Facebook has revolutionized social media, and it is rare to find someone who is not on Facebook. It started out as an exclusive network, where only students from a select number of colleges and universities could contact one another; it is now open to anyone with an email address. In fact, I remember when it was a rite of passage to get one’s college email address and be able to finally make a Facebook account (providing, of course, that one’s school was included in Facebook’s network). It is actually kind of crazy to see how time has changed, and in such a short span. Nowadays, it is not unusual to receive “friend” requests from people one has never met before, or even to accept and be Facebook friends with someone one will never meet (though this is a much more common trend among younger teenagers and newer Facebook users).

It has become the main social networking site for teenagers (and most likely for everyone, but I know there is data behind the teenaged population). Interestingly, though parents and other adult figures may be worried that the increase in online interaction, instead of face-to-face communication and interaction, teenagers would become increasingly antisocial, preferring being on Facebook to interacting in “real” life. As it turns out, teenagers with healthy, active social lives in real life merely supplement their social lives with Facebook as an online component, furthering positive relationships. On the other hand, those teenagers who have preexisting asocial tendencies, behavioral problems, or depression tend to carry those over to the Internet (and vice versa). Thus, online interaction tends to reflect what face-to-face, real life encounters are like. You can check out an article about the January 2010 findings here.

Online gaming site Roiworld conducted a survey in June that demonstrated some teenagers have become tired of Facebook and had decreased their use sometime within the previous six months—I would be interested in finding out whether this has been a trend that has continued since.  Another interesting statistic is that Facebook was found as the top “gaming” website (teens spend more time playing games on Facebook than on other sites… by a lot). I have included slides below:

Teens & Social Networks Study (June 2010)

Not only are Facebook games popular, but Facebook chat has become one of the most common ways for teenagers to chat online. I asked one of my teenaged brothers whether he used it a lot, and he looked at me like I was crazy: “Are you kidding me? No one uses AIM anymore, that’s so old school. We don’t even g-chat that much, everything is definitely on Facebook.” My guess is that g-chatting is much more popular among the young professional set because, in many offices, Facebook is a blocked website… and much more embarrassing to be caught on by one’s boss or nosey co-worker.

Between all that and the events, pictures, status updates, “it’s not official until it’s on Facebook” way of thinking, and more, it is not difficult to see why Facebook has become so rampantly popular. Apparently it is too much for some teens to take—they can become addicted to the point of having their grades fall and their relationships with their parents put on edge. Not to worry, Moms! The website balancingmotherhood.com has an article on how to help your teen break his/her Facebook addiction (?!). I wouldn’t say that’s the biggest problem with Facebook, but more on that next week.

For now, I will leave you with a teenager's view on how Facebook can be a big time waster, which is something anyone who has a Facebook account would be able to tell you, but something I think few teenagers would readily admit.

being authentic... or not

Media has become an integral part of teenagers’ everyday lives. While magazines and other more traditional, “old” media forms like television have always been very prominent in the lives of teenagers, the addition of the “new” media devices—mobile phones, the Internet, and other platforms used by the phones/Internet—has changed the way teenagers interact with media. Now, it is rare to be somewhere where there is no presence of some kind of media, in one form or another. Recently, I contacted a Rutgers Journalism and Media Studies doctoral candidate, Dara Persis Murray, for her view on the relationship between teenagers and media, a relationship that seems to be growing in complexity. I was very interested in her thoughts particularly because in addition to studying journalism and media studies, she has a certificate in Women and Gender Studies, and research interests that closely mirror the focus of this blog. We covered a variety of topics, some of which I will address in weeks to come, but for this week I will stick to issues of authenticity in online interactions and identities.

The growth of media and its influence has begun to alter the way teenagers interact with others (both with other teenagers and with those not of their own generation). According to Ms. Murray:
Teenagers’ daily lives are synonymous with constant communication. It seems like there is never any room for down time (i.e. turning off electronic devices). Many people may have more “friends” on Facebook than they could ever meet in person. These sorts of relationships are good and bad—people can engage in identity play but they may also feel that the relationships lack a certain sort of authenticity. Teenagers’ use of new media may also be problematic for generational interactions—for instance, communicating with a grandparent or even a parent who is not used to texting.

Ms. Murray brings up a number of interesting points. Authenticity online is something with which teens struggle; in general, teens (and girls in particular) use social media to reinforce relationships that already exist in real life: “While anonymity and the ability to escape family and the confines of the household by connecting with friends, it is vital to note that because they are primarily used to keep in touch with people known offline these [social media] tools are extensions of ‘real-life’ social networks.”1 Also, if you really take the time to think about it, portraying yourself authentically is, in and of itself, an interesting idea. This entry from the blog PersonalizeMedia really has some good food for thought about being authentic, online or otherwise. The Internet is a good place for trying things out, especially for those who really want to explore who they really are, and this is kind of how Ms. Murray feels teenagers use it: “I think that teenagers primarily see the internet as a free space—a place to be your aspirational self—as there is always a chat room where you can recreate your identity and see how users respond to you.”

It seems as if people tend to flock to social media during teenaged years especially, just because of the nature of life during that timeframe. As Ms. Murray put it, even though trying new versions of oneself out online “raises the issue of misrepresentation versus identity play…since the teenage years, especially, are fraught with figuring out who you are, the internet is a logical space for identity work.” It is during this period in life that humans really try to come up with an “identity” for themselves, which is done namely through trial-and-error. For example, I know many see the beginning of college as an opportunity to “reinvent” themselves—to assert the identity they feel is their own, which they might not have fully developed (or been able to implement, so to speak) during the earlier teenage years.

But the role of identity branches out into more things, as well. For example, Ms. Murray also points out a physical side to it:
For girls and young women, I think that the Internet is [a] space to play with your physical self too—there are so many tools for photoshopping pictures of yourself or otherwise representing your appearance in a way that may not reflect the offline reality. It is also a space for the formation of communities about issues of beauty, fashion, and health. The reasons why women feel the need to alter their appearances online (and, of course, offline) may speak to the impact that media messages about beauty and body image [have] on female audiences.

This reminds me of Brad Paisley’s amusing song, “Online” (lyrics can be found here):



On websites like hotornot.com, or even online dating sites, people purposely misrepresent their physical images—teenagers are not alone in this activity (as for gender, I would like to note that Ms. Murray pointed out to me that one reason why girls may be more active than boys on social media platforms, such as Twitter, is because sites have been more aggressively marketing to girls)—and other things about themselves, regardless of what may be authentic. The trend seems to begin during the teenage years, but it is by no means left exclusively to teenagers, as many people take advantage of the relative anonymity of the Internet to be something other than what they are in "real life."






 1 Tsoulis-Reay, A. “OMG I’m Online… Again! MySpace, MSN, and the Everyday Mediation of Girls.”  Screen Education, 2007, 53, 48-55. 

Getting Started

Welcome! This blog will be investigating the relationship between media and teenagers, specifically the effect of media on teenagers. I feel like it has not been that long since I was a teenager myself; yet already things like the current media devices and the many available social media platforms have completely altered the way many teens interact, view the world, and even live. Presently, I am around both teenagers and “tweens” on a daily basis, and I am amazed at all the differences between what things were like when I was there age and what it is like today.

It seems as if everyone has at least one digital music player (which is an iPod, more often than not), cell phone, and laptop computer—if not more.  In fact, these devices have become so prominent in the lives of teenagers that it is difficult to find a teenager who does not have one or more of these items within reach at all times. When they are at home, my brothers are rarely found without both their respective laptops and cell phones on hand. When watching television, for example, both devices are present and being used.  God forbid they miss the most recent status updates or cannot text their friends for an hour.

Having been observing this phenomenon for some time, I have become very interested in what all of this media has done to change this generation next in line for adulthood.  A good starting point for some background facts and stats is the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. In fact, thus far in my research, their research has been an invaluable resource.  Amanda Lenhart’s recent presentation, “How do [they] even do that?” A Pew Internet guide to teens, young adults, mobile phones and social media, contains a wealth of basic information, so I have included it below:

"How do [they] even do that? A Pew Internet guide to teens, young adults, mobile phones and social media

View more presentations from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

One of the most interesting things I found was that it is a pretty safe assumption to say that teenagers are constantly texting: 31% of teenagers send over one hundred texts per day!  That’s a pretty crazy statistic (girls average 125; boys, 101). Surprisingly (or maybe not), text messaging is the largest growing form of communication for teens. Besides being annoying (have you ever been talking to someone who whips out her phone to have a texting conversation with a friend at the same time?), the increase in text communication brings up some other problems, particularly things like the growing “sexting” trend.

Some of the topics that will be addressed in this blog will include: teens and their mobile phones, sexting, cyberbullying, privacy issues, social networking sites (like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.), twitter, effects of information sharing and access, video games, and whatever else comes to light.  For example, to what degree have social networking sites supplanted face-to-face social interactions? Learning more about teenagers and their use of modern media technology is key in understanding in which direction the world is headed. Hopefully, I will have some expert answers to some of my own direct questions—in fact, I was waiting on some before I posted this week, but it looks like I will be working on incorporating the material in future posts, as everyone is rather busy these days.

Something to think about is the future: where is all this taking us? Will teenagers continue to send as many texts and be as active on social media networks as they become young adults and beyond? A San Francisco Chronicle article from July asks some of these same questions, but does not really have an answer. For instance, as an anonymous survey respondent put it: "Generation Y is heading for a social networking hangover. Big-time…The level of personal information sharing - forever stuck in the Web and beyond their control - will haunt many of them as they enter adulthood, like virtual tattoos that cannot be removed."